With the energy demands of large homes a growing concern across the
Island, Aquinnah selectmen this week unanimously endorsed a regulation
that would require new homes over a certain size to include renewable
energy sources such as solar panels or wind turbines.

"This is an important measure," selectman James Newman
said at the regular board meeting on Tuesday, after proposing the energy
requirement. "And I think that this community should be a leader
on the issue."

There was talk of class warfare and fascism. There were dark forecasts of Martha’s Vineyard as a community polarized between very rich and very poor. There was a crowd. Last Monday’s was not your standard meeting of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission land use planning committee.

But as commission executive director Mark London noted even before it began, there’s something about the subject of big houses which gets people going.

The Chilmark planning board this week took up the thorny subject of large houses, their impact on the environment and how to regulate them.

At a special meeting Wednesday afternoon that drew a small crowd, the planning board announced the formation of a large house working group charged with determining whether existing zoning bylaws should be changed to limit house sizes.

Planning board chairman Janet Weidner said it would be the first of many discussions.